For My Husband, On His 40th Birthday

TheBMoney 

He’s wearing blue basketball shorts and a white t-shirt when he opens the door. Hair slightly askew, a bit of scruff on his face, he smiles and tells us to come on in. Apologies, he’s been sick, just got over strep throat. His voice is slightly raspy, somehow making him even more attractive. 

I am standing in Brett Gadd’s living room. Is this real life?

I don’t know Brett, I only know of Brett. I know he just graduated college. I know once upon a time, he coached the JV girls basketball team at our tiny high school. And I know, right now, my stomach is doing cartwheels every time he looks at me.

My friend Robby has brought me here on our way home from the county fair. He needs to return a video game; I am just a tag-a-long. They talk, as guys do, sports and video games and the like. Every chance he gets, Brett turns to me, smiling, asking a question. 

I put forth my most charming, effortless self (which, in actuality, requires a great deal of effort). I am both flirting and playing it cool, trying to come across as equal parts intelligent and witty. 

At one point he turns on his computer and AIM pops up on the screen. I squint and memorize his screen name, as if my life depends on it, as if I’ll never see him again. 

Robby says we should go, it’s getting late. I do not tell him I want to stay, that my heart is beating a little faster, that I just want to sit here, on the edge of Brett Gadd’s bed, staring at his face for a few more hours. We say our goodbyes, nice to meet you’s, an awkward-yet-electrifying half hug on my way out the door. 

The minute I get home, I open my laptop, log on to AIM, and type in the screen name: TheBMoney.

He’s already there, waiting.

Home Safe

Nine missed calls. I notice them right before bed, a lump in my throat. I call him back, he’s fine, everything is fine. You usually call when you get home. 

I’m sorry, I tell him. Where are you? 

I’m driving to your house, he confesses. I was just going to make sure your car was in the driveway. I wanted to make sure you got home safe. 

Bonus Gift

“Did you hear that?” he asks. I look at him, confused, hearing nothing. 

“I think I just heard reindeer on the roof,” he says, smiling, jumping to his feet. He vanishes up the stairs, leaving me alone on the couch. I survey the room—tissue paper littered all over the floor, half-drunken mimosas resting on the coffee table. Christmas music plays softly in the background, but the house is completely quiet otherwise. 

His footsteps thud down the stairs and he reappears, another gift in hand. 

“Looks like Santa left a bonus gift,” he tells me. 

I peel back the wrapping paper to reveal an Instax camera, something I secretly wanted but would never purchase for myself.

“I just thought … seems like you’re getting interested in photography ...” he trails off, waiting for my response.

Tears pool in my eyes. Not because of the camera. But because he noticed. 

We’ll Make It Work

We are sitting in lounge chairs on a black sand beach in Santorini. He’s in the shade (as always), and I’m in the sun, scribbling thoughts and dreams and hopes into a soft spiral journal. This seems as good a time as any to bring it up. 

“I’ve been thinking …” I start, hesitating, not even sure what exactly I’m proposing. “What if  … what if I tried to make it as a freelancer?”

He puts his book down and turns to face me. 

“I’ve been thinking and praying about it a lot recently. Right now I’m pouring 40 hours a week into someone else’s dream, and sometimes I wonder what would happen if I poured 40 hours a week into my own dream, you know?”

I hear the immense privilege dripping from my words, the guilt of my own selfishness floating up in my body, aware of what I am actually asking him. Are you willing to hold down the fort in cubicle-land, with the steady paycheck, and the health insurance, while I take a leap of faith?

He listens and nods, unfazed, as if I’ve just proposed we grab burgers for lunch, as if it’s no big deal, the thought of me quitting my full-time job to try to make it as a writer, a photographer, an artist.

“I think you should do it,” he says, not missing a beat.

I unclench my jaw, unaware I had been grinding my teeth, waiting for this answer, this support, this permission. 

I ask him if he’s sure. He nods again, with confidence, as if he’s never been more sure of anything in his life. 

“Hey. Look at me,” he reaches over and puts his hand on my arm, “If you want to be an astronaut, I’ll figure out how to get you into NASA.” 

I can’t help but laugh, picturing myself in a spacesuit. 

He leans back in his chair, smiling, looking back down at his book. “We’ll make it work,” he tells me. 

Still Us, Only Better

We are heading to the birth center in ten hours for a scheduled c-section, and the gravity of this event suddenly hits me while I am brushing my teeth. Our family of two is about to become a family of three. I begin sobbing, spontaneously, with a mouth full of toothpaste. 

He is by my side in a flash, asking what’s wrong, what happened, is it the baby? 

I tell him how sad I am that we are no longer going to be just the two of us, tears streaming down my face as I attempt to articulate everything I am mourning, everything we are about to lose—as if this baby we have always wanted and prayed for is somehow robbing us at the same time.

He takes me in his arms, calm, steady, and reminds me of all the new memories we’ll make. 

“Think about the life we’re building, the trips we’ll take, loud Christmas mornings, all of the adventures to come,” he whispers in my ear. “We’re still us, only better.”

I Can’t Believe You Just Did That

Had I never seen the film Knocked Up, I wouldn’t believe the sounds coming out of my own mouth. I am horrified people can hear me.

He never leaves my side. He’s holding my hand, my leg, my hair. You’re amazing, you’re doing such a great job. I am begging for drugs. Everyone says they’re coming, but they never do. I feel like I have to push. I really don’t want to push. 

The midwife tells me how to breathe. I’m dizzy, lightheaded, doing it all wrong. Why didn’t we ever go to a class? 

“I can’t do this!” I scream, my head falling back on the table. 

The midwives chorus back, YES YOU CAN. 

I push one final time, and finally—a sweet release—he’s out, screaming himself. I feel nothing and everything. My emotions are dead, my body’s on fire. I cannot even cry. His gooey body is placed on my chest, but I don’t even remember looking at him.

I only remember looking at Brett, tears streaming down his face, crying for both of us. 

“I can’t believe you just did that.”

He says it over and over. 

I can’t believe you just did that. 
I can’t believe you just did that. 
I can’t believe you just did that.

Beautiful

My parents have told me several times about the Sunday my dad dressed me for church. Without help, he put me in an outfit—dress, tights, shoes, bow, and carried me proudly into the living room to show my mom.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” he said. 

My mom examined me, smiled, and said, “Well, yes, but her dress is on backwards.” 

They always laugh when they recall the memory, chuckling at my dad’s misstep.

I am reminded of this story when I walk into Presley’s bedroom one day to find Brett buttoning her into an outfit backwards. I almost feel bad telling him. 

“I don’t know how to dress a girl!” he protests, laughing. I’ll give him that. We’ve been dressing boys for seven years. Their clothes are less complicated. 

Later that night he yells from the bathroom, “Babe, you gotta see this!” 

I turn the corner to see him dipping Presley under the running faucet, a huge grin stretched across her face, her eyes closed, as if she’s being shampooed at a luxury salon. Brett’s holding her head with one hand and using his other one to massage shampoo out of her hair, careful to avoid her eyes. 

“She loves when I do this,” he tells me. 

He pops the drain, wraps her in a pink towel, and hands her off to me. I carry her into her room where we both sit down on the carpet to dry, lotion, diaper, and get her (properly) into pajamas. I tousle her head with the towel and brush her hair, marveling for a moment at how long it’s getting. 

My husband stares at her for a minute before saying, “She’s so beautiful.” 

I look at him, looking at her, and agree. Beautiful, indeed. 

I’ll Do It

It’s 5:21am, and we are drinking coffee in bed, eyes half shut. I’m rolling an ice roller over my eyes and trying to read for a dose of inspiration before I head out to the Tuff Shed in our backyard to write. I am curled up in a fuzzy gray blanket, already dreading the ten feet of cold I have to walk through, like the California wimp I am.

“I wish we could somehow turn the heat on in the shed, from inside the house,” I say to Brett. 

Without flinching, he says, “I’ll do it for you.”

I don’t even have time to say, that’s okay babe. I’ll suck it up. Don’t worry about it. 

He’s already out of bed, turning off the house alarm. He’s already stepping into the cold for me—wearing shorts no less—to unlock the shed, turn on the lights, and warm up the room for me so I can write.

I have a series of flashbacks of every time he’s gone outside for me. Such a specific act of love, going out into the cold. I cannot begin to tell you how many times he’s gone to the car to retrieve my makeup bag, to the lounge chair in the backyard to retrieve my book, out into the shed to grab my laptop. Probably over 100 times.

Me: Here’s a problem I have, a thing I forgot outside, I don’t want to go out in the cold. 

Here we go again, a dance we know by heart.

Him: I’ll do it.

Beautiful, Part Two

“What would you think if I wanted to get Botox?” I ask him one morning. 

“I’d think you’re crazy,” he murmurs from the other side of the bed. 

I’ve been talking about Botox for a week, not that I want it, necessarily, but that I am shocked and incredulous at how many women are doing this, how normal it all seems, how amazing everyone else’s foreheads look. 

“You need to google ‘Botox Gone Bad’ and look at some of those pictures,” he tells me.

I can tell he’s not taking me seriously, but I can also tell he doesn’t really care one way or the other. I get out of bed and slip my feet into slippers, grabbing my glasses off the nightstand. 

“Babe ...” he says, as I start to walk toward the bathroom.

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re beautiful.” 

Got Milk?

It’s the night before his 40th birthday, and I have a migraine. Also, double whammy, I’m on my first period since the miscarriage. I seem to have one billion hormones swirling in my body. I can’t stop crying. My manuscript is due in 24 days. I finish writing at 7:06pm and head into the kitchen, ravenous. I pour myself a bowl of cereal and open the refrigerator to find, of course, no milk. I unravel like a spool of thread.

“I’m falling apart,” I tell him, bursting into tears.

He takes me in his arms, tells me it’s going to be okay, offers to go buy milk, even though it’s two days before Thanksgiving and we both know the grocery stores will be a zoo.

I sniffle and tell him it’s fine, I’m fine. He knows I am not fine.

“I’ll be right back,” he says, kissing me on the cheek.

He turns on a movie for the kids, tells me to take a bubble bath, disappears out the door. Thirty minutes later, he returns with a carton of almond milk.

You’re my hero, I tell him.

You know I’d do anything for you, he tells me.

(He would.)

(He really would.)